USA On A Budget – 14 night Trip

USA On A Budget

The last time I was out in NYC was back in 2o12 – And I seriously can not believe I’d left it this long before returning.

I MISSED IT.

Have you guys been to NYC? If you have…you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Saying that…I think it’s definitely a place you will love or hate.

It’s such a gem for creatives too, with so much inspiration everywhere.

This time though, we were aiming to do it on as much of a budget as possible.

Since going full-time self employed earlier this year with the business, I’ve had to be stringent as much as I can until I get financial consistency. It’s been challenging but I refuse to give up and in!

Hence the whole doing it on a budget thing.

USA on a budget

We headed there for 14 nights.

To give you a quick break down of what the itinerary looked like;

Manchester > Boston

2 x Nights nights in Boston

Boston > NYC

5 x Nights in NYC

NYC > New Orleans

5 X Nights in New Orleans

New Orleans > NYC

1 x Night in NYC

NYC > Boston

2 x Nights in Boston

Flights

You can check out an article I shared a while back on this here. That’s generally how I get cheap air fares but this time? It was different. The awesome guys at Holiday Pirates shared a flight offer back in February. The booking was completed via Omega Flight Store. We got flights from Manchester to London (BA) London to Boston (Virgin Atlantic) and return from Boston back to Manchester for £470.70 for two people so £235.20 pp return. Having been looking at flights for a while now direct from Manchester, this is by far the cheapest I’ve found! So when I saw it, I just had to book it right away ?

Now although we got an amazing deal from UK to Boston, we had issues finding something on a budget from NYC to New Orleans. I can not believe how crazy expensive it is by all modes of transit. After thoroughly researching car rental, megabus, train, plane, it worked out best for us to stick to getting there by air. We don’t have that much time and so we just had to pay and book with JetBlue and paid (extortionate) £446.22 so £223.11 pp. Seriously guys, so gutted about this one ? But we both wanted to visit New Orleans on this trip so forked out for it. Blah.

Cost of Flights £458.31

USA on a budget

Accommodation

We are fans of AirBnB so we researched prices for both hotels and AirBnB. One of the things we were keen to do was stay in a neighbourhood to have more of an authentic experience since the last few times I visited, I stayed bang right in the middle of NYC. It’s hubby’s first time visiting NYC so he was easy with whatever. After much research, we booked a place in Brooklyn with a rooftop access ? the host seems awesome and we paid £235 for 5 nights so £117.50 pp.

We are also staying 2 nights in Boston when we arrive so we found a place for £106 so £53 pp.

In New Orleans, we decided to splash out a little and booked in a hotel since we are doing AirBnB for most part of the trip. We ended up booking at the Old 77 for 5 nights which was £413 so £206.50 pp.

Cost of Accommodation £259.50 pp

We were yet to book the 3 nights upon returning back to NYC so I’ll add that to the next article along with the cost of Megabus from Boston to NYC.

Spending Money

The plan for the time we are in the states is to have a budget of $50 a day but I do want to try keep that at the top end! We’ll have to let you know how that turns out.

So far, all in all, we have spent a grand total of £836 (rounded to the next closest figure) for travel and accommodation.

Upon returning back to the UK – I can confirm we spent around £600 pp during the trip which was tours and food costs which brings the total up to around £1500 pp for 14 nights.

USA on a budget

Food

One of the things we love to do when using AirBnB is cook at the place if we have kitchen. It’s definitely nice to eat out but it definitely gets a little too much sometimes! So like most of our trips in recent months, we will be looking at buying food for breakfast / snacks for lunch and eating out once a day most likely. It’s not a strict rule but we’ll see how we go! We are definitely looking forward to the street food too ?

Sightseeing & Transportation

During the trip, we did a few touristy type activities.

We did Empire State in NYC – $54 pp for all 3 floors, the Whale Watch Tour in Boston – $53 pp for a 3.5 / 4 hour cruise and finally the Kayak Swamp in New Orleans which cost $59 pp for the tickets plus $20 pp transportation fee.

In Boston it was around $2 rounded up for a subway ride each way so around $4 a day on transport and New Orleans was similair price for the street cars.

In NYC we got a 7 day metro card which cost around $32 pp and gives you unlimited rides – Definitely great value for money in NYC!

USA on a budget

Overview

Given that we are having a sort of holiday plus travels during this trip, I’m pretty happy with what we ended up spending. We didn’t want to totally skimp out but we definitely didn’t want to splash loads of cash at the trip either. I think we have a happy medium!

There are of course others ways of saving money on your trip which I’ll cover in a separate blog post really soon!

What do you think? Do you think this a good price for 14 nights in NYC & New Orleans? Any saving tips for our up coming trip? Comment below I’d love to hear!

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